Discordant Note | The Beginning After the End SI

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Arthur Leywin

Bairon rocketed away from me, his body spinning as electricity jumped from his skin. Lightning leapt from him, singing the cobblestones before his body dug a furrow in the rock. He slid through the stones for several yards before he finally stopped, sparking like a defunct motor.

I ignored him for now.

I knelt in the rain, threading my hand through Tess' hair, brushing out a few chips of stone and debris that coated her gunmetal gray. Though my touch was gentle, it did not match the cold fury I felt building inside.

Tess raised a shaking hand, her fingers trembling as they clutched my wrist. She looked like she'd personally been dunked in a hurricane. Her uniform was tattered, burned, electrified, and then soaked through, but despite it all, she still managed to maintain a sort of exhausted elegance as she sank into my arm.

"Took you long enough, idiot," she said, tiredly. A strained smile stretched across her lips. "You pick the best times to show up."

The entirety of the street was quiet, save for the crashing rain and ominous rumble of the unfolding spatial ritual. I could feel it, see it as weaves of infinite purple tied the world into knots that tore themselves apart in an increasing wave. The lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent Dicathians fueled the growing fire of Agrona's ritual, and the effects were painfully clear to my aetheric senses.

Toren drifted down from the sky a moment later. His hair was a burning, vibrant red that pulsed in time with the feathered runes adorning his physique. An armor of glittering crystal mana refracted the constant streams of light that shone in the skies, bathing him in a warm, otherworldly glow.

He clenched his fists as he stared at the expanding dome of breaking space. Those burning pits widened in horror and comprehension as the lifeforces of countless people carried the ambient mana toward one violent crescendo.

The world flowed inward toward a concentrated point. It reminded me of a mana core, in a way, if a mana core were made of haunted souls and bloodstained weeping.

"This is what he meant," Toren said quietly. "This is what he tried to distract you from. The death and the slaughter… All for this."

Sylvie—in her human form—knelt by Tess, her amber eyes grave and focused. She pressed a soulfire-coated hand to my childhood friend's back. Cleansing aether particles danced amidst the blackened red of her Vritra arts, the combined effect washing away the many wounds across the elven princess' body.

And through it all, Cadell Vritra watched. His gravestone face showed no emotion, and his countenance was smooth as polished marble. But his eyes. Those pits of red burned as they focused on me, memories of my earliest days on this continent threatening to pierce my composure.

Memories of Sylvia, caring for me and calling me grandson. Memories of one moment of time stolen from the world, where a dragon too good for her Fate entrusted me with her daughter and her Will.

Bairon rose slowly from where he'd been struck, snarling in anger, but the other two Alacryans drew more of my attention.

The red-haired one took a hesitant, slightly fearful step back as she looked at Toren, her eyes wide with surprise as they darted between my kneeling form and the lingering scion of the Asclepius Clan. "Spellsong?" she asked, confused. "What is the meaning of this? Why are you with—"

It was only after Toren's hand snapped outward in a blur, a gauntlet of shrouded light clenching into a fist, that I realized someone else had started to move. The purple-haired Scythe had turned, barely in the process of fleeing, before a shimmer of white fuzzed around her throat.

A scream of terror choked off before it even had time to sound. I heard grinding flesh and exhaled air. Toren's eyes remained fixed on the growing swell of the ritual magic, even as the ambient mana bent from his telekinesis.

Viessa Vritra's single remaining arm clawed at her throat as she fell to her knees. She looked like a terrified doll, her eyes bugging out of her head like an insect's as her fingers clawed at nothing. It was as if she forgot to even use any sort of magic as she struggled futilely.

"We'll fulfill that promise we made you, Scythe of Truacia," Toren's voice echoed out, smooth and graceful in its nestled tones. I could feel the heat of his power along my acclorite-infused body, sweat beading on my skin as Sylvie continued her work. "Until then, you shall wait."

Cadell's face slowly split into a smirk as his eyes goaded Spellsong. "Magnificent, is it not?" he said, sweeping a gauntleted hand behind him. "Our High Sovereign can turn anything to his ends. Any defeat and any loss can all be made into something worthy of the gods. Wouldn't you agree? An array that directs both heartfire and mana… Something so great could only be achieved by one who knew the intricacies of the world."

The Scythe's gauntleted hand slowly closed. "Kezess Indrath, Ruler of Epheotus, believes that his kingdom is safe from the grip of the Lord of the Vritra. The Dragon has thought himself above contempt, forgetting the mortality of his land. For as he sees it, it is veiled, masked by aetheric spellwork that forbids entry to all but those he trusts. But soon, that will change."

The dots slowly began to connect inside my head as Cadell spoke. And I could feel it in the aether, too. This gathering spell… It would bring all the power and energy it could to bear, before driving it like a spike through to the distant land of the gods. After all, the barrier between dimensions was weaker here, with an aetheric city floating in the sky.

"There will only be war," Sylvie's voice trembled across our mental link. "Unending war. If the connection to Epheotus is torn apart… Then nothing will spare the people of Dicathen from asuran bloodshed. If Epheotus is sundered, my grandfather's forces will burn everything to the ground."

Visions of the massacres across Sapin flashed through my mind, but on a world-ending scale. Legends told of continents sinking in the wake of asuran warfare. And if Agrona suddenly had free access to Kezess' home ground…

Kezess wouldn't allow it. The genocidal tyrant could not let his base of power be threatened. He'd send his armies over Dicathen, turning this land into an inescapable warzone. And if Agrona was willing to take that gambit, that meant he had a power that let him contend with open, asuran warfare.

My pulse rose as I stared down at Tess, coming to a decision. She saw it in my eyes, no words needing to be said. I slowly rose to my feet, lifting my childhood friend, too.

Sylv, I thought sternly, my body loosening as I prepared for what was to come, take her somewhere safe when it starts. Please.

My bond glared daggers at Cadell, a hatred I had never known she possessed warring within her. This Scythe had killed Sylvia, her mother. But all the same, she wrapped an arm under Tessia's, the two sharing a bond nearly as deep as mine.

Toren's head cocked like a curious bird as Cadell's declaration washed over us. All the while, he had never stopped enforcing his will over the ambient mana, keeping the terrified Viessa in a choking telekinetic grip.

His lips pulled back into a sneer that seemed both remarkably out of character, yet simultaneously made perfect sense. In his voice, I recognized the familiar melody of Aurora Asclepius' melodic intonations. "This ritual is of the phoenix, Hand of Agrona. It is crafted of a firebird's insight and an Inverted piece," he hissed. "These are parts more of us than of your petty Sovereign. We will unmake it."

Bairon had reached his feet, lightning arcing out of him as he glared balefully at me with eyes that could kill. Part of me was reminded of when I had arrived upon the fields of Xyrus Academy during the Alacryan attack, witnessing Tess' battered body as Lucas taunted me.

But even the lord of thunder froze as a baleful aura seeped from the creases and gaps in Cadell Vritra's armor. Like a thousand bony hands thrusting from shadows, I could feel the weight of untold malice creeping from the dark, trying to wrap their hands around my body and soul.

Ever since Toren and I had arrived via his dying tempus warp, all I could see was impossible vibrancy. More mana than I could even comprehend painted the sky the color of a dying sunset as it glinted through the purples of flowing aether. Red and green and blue and yellow created threads of impossible light that nearly distracted me from the unfolding horror.

Cadell took one step forward, and the mana turned black. His presence ripped the life and potential of every single mote of ambient mana that brushed close to him, leaving them dead and decayed. His gauntleted footsteps echoed out even amidst the thunderstorm. His horns glinted darkly in contrast to his long, bone-white hair, drawing a chill from the depths of my core.

"Aurora Asclepius," he said with a sneer, "I have heard much of your powers. You have even managed to make something of your bonded lesser. It's time that growth was put to the metal. Do you think you can protect this son of yours from my blade? Already, your Hearth will burn. It is only natural you are next."

Searing white mist rose off of Toren's crystalline armor as the rain struck it. Flames popped into existence around his shrouded talons as he rose to the bait. I exhaled a breath as I saw the mage tense, his eyes widening in tempered rage. Cadell had struck a nerve in the enmeshed duo of mother and son. His fingers twitched, and Viessa whimpered.

What was it that Rinia said, not long ago? I asked myself, remembering her rickety words.The most dangerous enemy isn't the one on the throne leading the forces, but the soldier with nothing to lose.

That warning was not for Dicathen. It was for Agrona. And here Toren was, the prophesied soldier, the potential to unmake this terrible ritual seared into his very blood.

I stepped forward, leaving Tess with Sylv. My King's Force interceded between the roaring star and the cold march of death, all four elements pulsing with aether as I professed my will.

Toren's churning eyes zeroed in on me, and I once again felt those rising questions in my chest. How had he observed me? What was this mage, who had reincarnated from a distant Earth? How was I supposed to think of him now, when he knew all of my deepest experiences in a way no others but Sylvie could comprehend?

But right now, as Dawn's Ballad shimmered into existence in my hand and Regis' hazy outline cemented itself at my side, I knew that none of that mattered.

"He wants to fight you, Toren," I said evenly, adopting the cold mantle of Grey. "That means Agrona wants him to fight you: and that means you cannot."

The air pulsed. The ritual not far from us was a beating heart, slowly gorging on the stolen life of those I had failed. With every pulse, it drank greedily. Boom boom. Boom boom. Boom boom.

But as I stared up at the cold eyes of the first true threat I had ever faced in this world, the one that had denied me a life where I could enjoy peace with my loved ones, I found that my pulse was even. It was steady and confident in my chest as my gloved hands clenched around Dawn's Ballad.

I searched Cadell's eyes as I stood before him. Compared to the towering creature, I was small. He was nearly eight feet tall, adorned in armor blacker than pitch, with gray skin the exact same as from my nightmares.

In nearly fifteen years, he had not changed at all.

"Boy," Cadell said in a dismissively dull tone, looking me up and down, "you've grown since we last met."

His eyes focused on the golden crown adorning my head, and I saw a measure of true disdain pierce his cruel mask. "Even adorning yourself in petty jewels." The Hand's intent rose again, attempting to cloak me in shadow. "Step aside. The High Sovereign still has use for you, Leywin."

Visions of Sylvia, dying alone in a cave with nobody to mourn her, flickered through the back of my mind. I shrugged off Cadell's King's Force like a man dusts dirt from their shoulder. "Nico is dead, Cadell. Agrona will have to find some other way to bring the Legacy to this world."

That, finally, seemed to get the dreaded mage's attention. Where before his expression and mannerisms had been dismissive and apathetic, the way he turned to look back at me like a machine's gears grinding to a halt made it clear I had his full attention. "Then you have made your survival irrelevant," he cursed, his mana signature rising. "And I can choose how you die."

"Deal with Bairon and the others, Spellsong," I said, gripping my purple sword as mana flowed from my core. Aether tingled across my muscles and veins, the world rising toward an eruption around me as I waited like a taut bowstring. "And find a way to stop that ritual when this is done."

Toren stepped back, seeming to regain his awareness of the situation. His gaze turned back to the dome of fractured space. It continued to both expand and condense at a frightening speed. Together, with our combined understandings of aether, I was certain we could deal with it.

But not without dealing with those who would try and stop us.

A ways behind me, Sylv tensed with Tess, both of them sensing the coming crescendo. Regis was a steel-cold presence at my shoulder, the king of another life staring with empty eyes at the titan of our past.

Something rumbled through the earth, like the stampede of a coming train. It had a rhythm to it as it approached at speed, silent amidst the clouds. Cadell's visage slowly morphed from his earlier pomp to a greater, deeper anger, neither of us breaking eye contact.

I sensed more than saw Toren's silent acceptance of what was to come. "Be careful, Arthur," he said somberly. "This world can't lose you."

The rising crescendo finally peaked, and the tension snapped.

Viessa finally remembered that she bore mana arts, clawing at her throat with void wind and tearing apart the telekinetic spell around her neck. She stumbled away, lifting up into the sky and attempting to flee.

Bairon roared, lightning from the clouds above striking him like fireworks from the deities themselves. Thunderclap Impulse surged along his nerves as he zipped forward, his rage-filled eyes intent on me. "Arthur!" he yelled, ignorant of his true station, "You don't just get to—"

Toren was already there, moving nearly too fast to see as he intercepted the oncoming Lance. Bairon backpedaled in surprise, barely managing to avoid being impaled by a shrouded blade thanks to his enhanced reflexes.

And while this was happening, I was already acting. In less than a heartbeat, I engaged fire and windborne both, calling to the aether to aid me. Cadell began to blur, a coating of soulfire sizzling around his flesh and armor as he prepared to punch me square in the jaw.

Instead, I engaged Burst Strike.

In less than a fraction of a second, my arm snapped upward with the raging fervor of fire and the graceful touch of wind. Mana and aether both flared around my glistening blade.

Cadell managed to catch it. That lance of molded midnight appeared out of black mist, intercepting that attack that would have cleaved the Scythe in two. My violet weapon dug deep into Cadell's blackened lance, wind tearing at the street as my spells surged through.

I engaged Thunderclap Impulse, commanding the lightning to enhance my reflexes. The blur of Cadell's approaching fist suddenly focused, the soulfire-coated gauntlet nearly bigger than my entire face.

I slipped the punch to the tune of this coming battle, weaving in close as Cadell's attack clipped a few hairs. Those locks of auburn fell in electrified slow motion under the effects of my internal lighting spell as I reared back a punch of my own.

I abandoned windborne and drew on the stalwart earth to complement explosive fire. A gauntlet of orange flame, brown stone, and swirling aether coalesced around my knuckles.

And once again, as my electrified eyes met the contemptuous red of Sylvia's murderer, I engaged Burst Strike.

My forearm phased forward in a blur nearly too fast for me to comprehend, slamming into the Scythe's breastplate just under the ribs. A shockwave rippled outward from the impact as my strike dented the black metal inward. The horned monster grunted in pain as he hurtled backward, Dawn's Ballad torn from his midnight Lance.

It felt like I had slammed my fist into a wall of black diamond. Despite the sturdy defenses of earthborne, there was an ache in my translucent red and yellow knuckles from where I'd struck the monster.

Cadell slowed to a halt in his backward skid, his hair flaring about him. He slowly raised a gauntleted hand to his lips, wiping at something there. The monster stared at the black blood dripping from his fingers, utterly silent.

Behind me, I was distantly aware that Toren had disengaged from Bairon, and was currently attacking a massive mana beast covered in iron plates. Tessia and Sylv were fleeing through the thundering sky, making for safety.

"It has been a long time since a lesser has managed to wound me," Sylvia's murderer said dourly, almost as if to himself.

I exhaled electrified steam, allowing my manaborne forms to retreat for a moment. I was getting better at utilizing them without strain, but holding two at once was still an effort.

"When you last saw me, I was just a boy," I said with an empty tone, resettling my stance and flourishing my blade. "Things are different from when you murdered Sylvia, Cadell."

"You still care about that?" the creature sneered, black hellfire sputtering around the dented plate armor. When it dissipated, there was no trace of the wound at all, just unblemished gray flesh. "Is that what drives the power in your blood, King Grey? Vengeance for a broken dragon?"

I saw the black particles of mana coalescing at terrifying speed around the monster's hand, a void-black sword of Vritra iron settling into his palm. In his other, he gripped the midnight lance, whose structure seemed to have recovered from where Dawn's Ballad had cut into it.

Memories played behind my eyelids. Perhaps before my ascension to king, I would have thrown myself at this monster in a blind rage. But over these past few months, I'd remembered what it was like to be cool and calculating. I knew when to strike and when to retreat. "I have never forgotten that cave, Cadell," I said, lowly. "That moment dictated the life I would live."

Sylvia had asked me to live a free, meaningful life. One where I could grow old, cherishing those I loved. She wanted me to be more than what I was as King Grey. But how could I ever achieve any of that with the monster in front of me?

And part of me still blamed myself. I blamed myself for being weak, for allowing myself to fall through that portal. I blamed myself for leaving Sylvia to die alone in a cave. And I blamed Cadell for casting a shadow across my second chance.

Lightning struck the ground between Cadell and me, the voltaic storm charged with mana and aether both. Stone erupted everywhere, chips arcing into the sky as dust obscured my vision.

The moment I lost sight of Cadell, I engaged water and earthborne. The earth hauled me forward as the world erupted into bursts of soulfire and spikes of blood iron. Oily-black spears two stories tall pierced where my heart would have been, each one gleaming with malice. I wove around a few, barely skirting the black metal as it tore cuts into my flank. But even as I used the well-oiled precision of water to redirect any attacks coming my way, I sensed something else building around me.

The atmosphere itself came alive. Black fires darted at me like arrows from everywhere and nowhere at once, the hungry maw of the Vritra arts closing in. Each of those projectiles was longer than my arm and packed with enough mana to level a building, and as they accelerated toward me on currents of void wind, I felt a cautious fear begin to settle in my bones.

"When the wretch, Nico, whined of a cold, emotionless king who carried no fears and felt nothing, Arthur Leywin, I felt something I had not known in an age." Cadell's voice wafted through the hellish atmosphere. "Anticipation."

Gritting my teeth, I called on the ambient water mana, forming rotating shields of ice and earth around me that moved to try and deflect each arrow of heatless black flame. The constant deluge of basilisk-tinged wind scoured at the aetherically reinforced earth nearly faster than I could conjure it. The barrage of soulfire arrows tore into my ice, devouring it hungrily. Everything else around me was caught in a maelstrom of hell a hundred yards wide, reducing everything to ash.

It was like I was beneath the flapping wings of a thousand ravens, each falling feather scouring my mana reserves. There was no light, no saving grace, and no hope within this domain of darkness.

"I never cared about your anticipation," I snarled, a dozen tiny cuts opening along my body. Within my manaborne forms, I didn't leak blood. Instead, my mana drifted into the sky from every wound. "I've only trained to put creatures like you down."

I ground my teeth, Dawn's Ballad glimmering purple as aether danced around me. Within my head—already feeling the effects of using so much power to hold off Cadell's casual assault—I devised a plan.

I let go of earthborne, taking on windborne in its place. The bungee-cord switch of mental states kept me energized as a swirling storm of ice and wind crackled around my knuckles.

And as the domain of terrible Vritra mana collapsed in on me, time ground to a halt. I was a single, purple-blue fleck of light amidst the shadow of mountains, my crown glimmering gold atop my head. My translucent blue and green body refused the utter hell of a black hole.

I slammed my fist into the ground, releasing my spell.

Absolute Zero.

A howling winter wind tore outward from me, ripping into the imploding darkness. Snow swirled and danced with flecks of purple as it howled with a gale that could topple cities. Cadell's domain spell was repelled as ice spread along the ground, a wintery domain carrying my decree as king.

This was my city. These were my people the Alacryans were threatening. This was my continent that these so-called gods would burn to ash. I caught a glimpse of Cadell again through the haze, his greatsword angled and his lance poised.

I exhaled a breath, set my stance, and then engaged Burst Step.

With wind magic removing my air resistance and the ice beneath my boots, I became little less than a blur as I surged toward Cadell. But the monster's eyes remained fixed on me as I hurtled toward him with the speed of a dozen planes.

His sword came down, poised to cleave me in two. With how my weapon was angled, I knew I wouldn't be able to raise it in time to deflect. The slab of black steel had been positioned perfectly to intercept my strike before I had even moved.

I grinned vindictively, then twisted the space in front of me.

I Warp Stepped backward, just as Cadell's sword carved right through where I would have been. His blade slammed into the ice on the ground, sinking deep. Yet I still carried the impossible momentum of my Burst Step, and I streaked past the Scythe, Dawn's Ballad cleaving him perfectly in two in a vibrant purple arc.

I knew immediately that I had somehow missed. I had sensed the shearing of his metal armor, but not his flesh. My weapon came away clean.

He's going to attack now, I thought with a sudden panic, something that was uncharacteristic of me. He's going to—

I jumped, twisting in midair as I barely avoided twin scythes of blood iron. They cut neatly through two of the nearby buildings, causing them to collapse into rubble. On instinct, I released waterborne, taking on fireborne as I recognized the swell of soulfire that was about to strike me. In fireborne, I'd be more resistant to any fire deviant, even if—

I barely raised Dawn's Ballad for a parry, before catching a feint and stepping back to avoid a sweep of the monstrous lance. My limbs burned from even the most basic actions, and I was forced to use both of my hands to deflect Cadell's casual one-handed sweeps. Sweep, sweep, sweep. His lazy blows left craters in the ground, toppled houses, and sent arcs of cutting black void wind into the sky.

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When the hammer blows became too much to dodge, I used earthborne, redirecting what force I could into the shattered stone beneath me. When blocking wouldn't work, I switched back to evasion and parrying, angling my purple sword in a desperate bid to keep my head.

And still, Cadell continued, unphased by everything I had thrown at him so far.

We zipped along the streets as I was pressed on the backfoot, every shadow lashing out and trying to steal my soul. Gusts of wind and piston stamps kept me mobile, darting from place to place as the inexorable Scythe pressed forward.

"How many times do you think I have played this game?" Cadell sneered. "How many times do you think I have fought things like you?"

I growled angrily, feeling my trepidation and fury both as I failed to make a single meaningful bit of damage. Fireborne pulled at that anger, harnessed it and honed it. "You've never fought anything like me," I snapped, already beginning to put together what made this monster invulnerable. "You'll never fight anything like me again. I'm going to kill you. For all the pain and suffering your kind has caused. For Sylvia, too."

Cadell had such perfect mastery of soulfire that he could turn his flesh into it. Every time Dawn's Ballad carved through his armor, he would preemptively turn a section of his physique into that damnable deviant. Even in fireborne, I could hardly comprehend the amount of precision such a spell would take. The sheer amount of control it needed made me certain.

He can't maintain such a spell indefinitely. It's too difficult, and he can only allow attacks to phase through parts of his body at a time, I reasoned.

I felt my mana reserves as another house collapsed from rebounding blood iron spikes. Distantly, I could sense the people within as they were crushed beneath the falling rubble, all unconscious from the sickening abundance of mana in the air. It only made my anger rise higher, my resolve to put this creature down.

A plan solidified in my head. I needed to hit the bastard with something he couldn't dodge or block. Something that would overwhelm him.

"More of the same," he sneered as we erupted into a center square. For the first time, I spotted people about us. Most of them were lying on the stones, overwhelmed to the point of unconsciousness from the ritual's flood of mana. They were splayed out like broken dolls, mothers reaching for children. Food stalls were toppled over, fresh produce spilling everywhere across the street. "I've always dealt with pests like you."

On a sudden, desperate urge, I engaged both wind and waterborne. I pleaded to the ambient mana, trying to push away any who were too close to the epicenter of the coming hell. Around me, a typhoon of aetheric water washed the square clear of people. Some slammed into brick walls or crashed against wooden carts, but I didn't have the time to see to their safety.

With my arms extended and my core aching, I was unprepared for the punch that slammed into my face. Stars exploded across my vision, my jaw fracturing from the gauntleted strike. The soulfire in Cadell's punch seeped into me, trying to claw its way across my manaborne form.

I blinked dizzily, struggling to remain conscious as another fist hurtled toward my face. I had the wherewithal to weave to the side, but a knee to my abdomen sent fresh organ-rupturing pain through my ribcage.

"When I slew Sylvia Indrath fifteen years ago, I was already Agrona's Hand," Cadell hissed, raising his sword again, "while you were a mere child. And now, years later, you say you'll end me for Sylvia?"

His blade came down like the harsh cry of a guillotine, singing with dark anger.

Through pain and agony of fractured ribs and a concussed head, I pleaded for the ground to give me something. To see me through this battle. I couldn't die here, not to Cadell. I still had so much to do.

My body shuddered with pain, and the entire square collapsed inward. A sinkhole a dozen yards wide swallowed everything, causing Cadell's balance to tip. His blade missed me by scant inches. His teeth gleamed like fangs.

"Before you were even born on this continent, I had already slain gods," Cadell hissed, leaning forward so that I could better sense the absurd amounts of mana roiling off of him. "When you were a whelp in another world, running along the slums of a broken nation, I was a Wraith for the High Sovereign. Hunting. Finding. Killing. Your precious Sylvia was just another asura who joined the others. She was nothing special."

I didn't fully register Cadell's words as we both fell. Instead, I beckoned to the aether, Warp Stepping high into the sky again. I hovered there, encapsulated by the winds as one of the ribbons of aether and mana brushed by me.

Cadell didn't seem surprised. He stared up at me with eyes full of contempt and disappointment.

I exhaled a gasp, pulling on my mana core once more as I used mana rotation to replenish my reserves. My hair whipped around me, lightning arcing across the sky. Orange lightning.

In my periphery, I was vaguely aware of Toren's showdown with Bairon, Viessa, and the red-haired Retainer. Spellsong looked largely unharmed as he zipped about the sky on wings of crystal, trailed by tendrils of searing voltage. Bairon's veins pulsed orange-red, the whites of his eyes now a deep black. Blood leaked from his nose and a thousand cuts along his body as he roared, hurtling after Toren with the speed of a return stroke.

It didn't appear as if he'd ever catch up.

I'd been pulling on the tether I had with Bairon since his fight started, trying to ensure his heart stopped beating. Yet somehow, the rogue Lance had managed to ignore the fact that he should be dead.

But he would die anyways, regardless of the outcome of his fight with Toren Daen. The drug that visibly coursed through his system was the same that had drained his rotten brother of life, condemning him to misery.

Strangely, it was that realization—that Lance Bairon Wykes would share the same Fate as his bygone brother—that gave me clarity, washing away my wounds for an instant.

"No, Cadell," I said quietly, raising Dawn's Ballad high. It gleamed like a violet beacon amidst the impossible kaleidoscope of colors. The wind of the storm tore at my tattered clothes, rain soaking into the countless cuts along my body. Fireborne gripped me as I sent a song to the storm, wishing for it to hear me. "You're wrong about Sylvia. About what she was."

Lightning crashed into the violet blade from the heavens, guided by my intent. One bolt, two, three, four… Each came with an increasing frenzy.

Far below at the edge of the massive sinkhole, Regis watched with dull eyes. Judging. And that was what Cadell didn't understand. Sylvia had shown me that I could never accept Grey, never be that creature I was before.

I saw Cadell's sneer as he conjured a storm of blood-iron spikes, each of them accelerating toward me along currents of void wind. I hung in the sky, bathing in the sheer flow of mana and movement of the space around me.

And then Dawn's Ballad came down like the command of a King. In it, I imbued my rejection of my previous life. My denial that I would be the same King I was before. My surety that I would be better.

The world flashed lavender as a bolt of lightning tore its way through the evening sky, bathing everything in a purple glow. My spell, amplified in size and power by the aether entwining it, screamed downward faster than I could even comprehend.

And when it reached Cadell's volley of blood iron, it only used the Vritra metal to further its ionizing goal. From shard to shard to shard of black metal it jumped, streaking downward in an unrelenting stream.

It struck the monstrous Scythe head on, bathing the world in violet and yellow light. The ground shook as tendrils of energy arced around the shattered town square, turning wood and stone into dust.

I slumped in the sky, wincing from the effort as fireborne drifted away. Dawn's Ballad nearly slipped from my hand as the aftereffects of such a powerful spell made themselves known.

Cadell couldn't have dodged that. With the speed of the spell, his position in the air, and the sheer volume of mana and aether within… he couldn't have just turned part of his body into soulfire like he did before. I had landed my first sure hit of this fight.

But then the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I had been charged with enough lightning to keep an Earthen city powered for a week a moment ago, but I hadn't felt… this. This rising sense of dread. This wasn't from lingering lightning in the air.

My heart skipped a beat as a presence drifted up from the earth.

Thunder rumbled ominously as I stared with rising horror at the charred sinkhole I'd turned into a glass floor. Because rising out of it—in slow, steady waves gradually growing—was soulfire. More and more and more soulfire burned in that pit, like a layer of hell all to itself. Those flames hurled silent tongues high, the particles of black-red deviant mana devouring even the dust.

"You misunderstand me, lesser," Cadell's voice echoed from that growing inferno. "I will show you."

He ascended like a demon from the depths of hell.

Cadell's skin was blackened and burned in a dozen places. His armor sparked and jumped with lingering electricity as his hair flowed behind him. He was wounded.

"Do you think you are the first to weep to me of their Sylvia?" he hissed. "Do you think you are the first to whine about how special the one I slew was?"

As I looked on in horror, his flesh began to mend in seconds, the damage I'd fought so hard to give him vanishing into nothingness. Cracked wounds reknit in tongues of healing hellfire, erasing all my progress.

"I have slain countless Sylvias, and every single Arthur Leywin that has sought their vengeance afterward. I wanted… more from you. I wanted King Grey. But you have disappointed me."

And then Cadell's entire body broke apart as a swell of mana erupted from him. I only had a single moment, a split instant of terrible realization as a storm of soulfire and void wind meshed with the air around me.

Cadell had never needed to change only parts of his body to soulfire. Because as his mana signature dispersed into the winds, I knew with rising terror that he'd somehow melded with the atmosphere itself. He hadn't just turned his flesh to soulfire, but void wind as well.

On horrified instinct, I concentrated mana from my core once more, dipping into water and earthborne as I sensed the utter tide of power stretching toward me. The aether haltingly obeyed my pleas as a cocoon of ice and earth coalesced around me, thicker than an iron hyrax's armor. I lost sight of the world as a celestial shell of glimmering purple, blue, and brown blocked out the light.

But I could sense what was happening outside as the weight of the atmosphere slammed into my shell. Soulfire tore at my defenses and shards of blood iron peppered my last refuge. The impacts rattled through the plates. I exhaled icy mist as I pulled myself inward, curling up to better concentrate my protections around me.

Within my head, I was trying to think of what I could do next. Anything I could do next. I could suddenly sense Sylvie's rising panic at Cadell's swelling mana signature, fearing as it battered my hovering sphere of condensed ice and earth.

He can't just keep doing this! I thought hazily, sensing as more and more power assaulted my protective cocoon. He'll run out of mana eventually! He has to!

I intuitively felt it when Cadell's nebulous form—made intangible and untouchable as it howled around me, assaulting me with an endless barrage of metal and anger—coalesced in front of the sphere once more.

"King Grey is dead," his contemptuous voice seeped through the growing cracks in my prison, "and in his place, I have to fight… this."

And then the flat of his blade slammed into my celestial shell with enough force to level a city block. My defensive measures shattered like glass, ice and stone left to the wind. I hurtled violently down toward the streets far below, the remnants of my sphere dissipating around me.

High above, Cadell had become one with the storm, a black smog of fire and grave-still decay misting through the thunder. A dozen spikes of blood iron hurtled down, each of them larger than a telephone pole, all tipped with soulfire and accelerated along gusts of grave wind. The breath of a thousand corpses screamed their fury toward me.

I resisted the urge to shake and tremble as I hit the ground, automatically conjuring pathways of ice along the streets. I skated backward, using gusts of wind to increase my momentum as I desperately dodged each spear. Dawn's Ballad flashed as I worked through sword arts I'd learned a lifetime ago, trusting in the Water and Wind forms to redirect and see me safe.

I blurred backward along the streets. Spines of oily black followed me, appearing like the quills of a raging porcupine as I barely avoided death by the skin of my teeth. My mana core ached from overuse as I struggled to think of what to do next.

As I raced through the cobblestone byways, trying to think of a plan, I caught sight of someone. A few people.

I squinted through the haze of my battle frenzy, noting… Was that Blaine?! And Kathyln, too, in the distance with a hundred others. They were shouting and screaming, trying to order their soldiers to—

I ducked, barely avoiding a slice of Cadell's sword as it whistled through the air right where my head used to be. My limbs screamed in exhaustion as I whirled with the perfect precision of a ballet dancer, cutting upward toward the demonic shadow at my back.

I could only see two black-red rubies in the cloud of wind and fire. Two pits of infernal scarlet blazed with hatred as my purple blade phased harmlessly through the air.

A gauntleted hand appeared from that fog, gripping my wrist. I tried to reorient, kicking upward toward those eyes in desperation.

Instead, Cadell slammed me to the ground, a crater larger than a house opening beneath my water-wind body. I coughed up blood, my forms abandoning me in that instant.

I blinked, trying to make sense of what was up and what was down as I knelt in that crater, my fingers still clutching Dawn's Ballad. Blood streamed from me as soulfire wormed its way along my mana channels, my acclorite-infused physique battling the foreign influence.

"And just like every Arthur Leywin I've fought, it ends like this. With you kneeling broken at my feet," Cadell hissed above me. "And all who worship you—all who thought you might shelter them from the truth—they can do naught but watch. You have failed them all, Lesser King."

I blinked through the pain, looking up at the monster as he loomed over me. At the edges of the crater, a hundred familiar faces stared down in horror and fear. Blaine… Kathyln… Alanis, the Chaffers, Trodius, and more. The Castle's response team.

They trust me, I thought through the haze. They trust their king. They need me. They need me to be strong. To… protect them all. That's why I took the crown. To keep them safe.

Regis stood silently at Cadell's side. Just… watching. The mask of King Grey stared down at me, separate and distant. I didn't know if he cared. I didn't know if he wanted anything different.

Cadell turned his head, his neck creaking like millennia old wood as he observed the spectators. "You thought you could set yourself up as a king among men, Leywin," he muttered dismissively. "My master wanted to see what you would become, to see if you lessers truly had any potential."

I could hear Sylvie's sudden terror across my bond, but even that was hazy. Blinking past my pain, I gripped Dawn's Ballad again. I forced myself up, trying to cut at the monster in front of me.

It was sloppy. Cadell didn't even bother dodging, just letting the attack mist through him ineffectually. When my cut reached its apex, his gauntleted hand reached out, wrapping my wrist in a crushing grip.

In his other hand, he planted that midnight lance. "I will make a show of ending you," he sneered. "For daring to disrupt Agrona's plans. For killing the little wretch, Nico. For disappointing me. I'll make it slow and brutal, so that none will ever make such mistakes again."

And then the shard of folded night sky elongated, surging forward. It pierced my right palm, forcing Dawn's Ballad to dissipate, before streaking up into the sky. It grew and grew and grew, enlarging as it gored through my sword hand. I screamed in pain as I arced through the sky, dangling from a limp hand.

I stopped before I thought I should have, the lance thunking into something solid. I jolted to a halt, my head cracking painfully against whatever I'd hit.

A tree, I realized vaguely. A massive tree, one I'd just barely been aware of before, towering over nearly everything in Xyrus. And I was pinned to its trunk like a fly to a dartboard as the lance continued to expand. The end of the weapon stayed planted in that distant crater as it pushed deeper and deeper into the mighty oak.

Cadell hurtled toward me, a flare of white hair and grim purpose. I conjured Dawn's Ballad again in my left hand, swiping it at the lance pinning my hand. My violet blade—which had never failed to cut anything before—phased harmlessly past the midnight lance.

As the monster reached me, wreathed in fire and wind, I made a split-second decision. I swept my blade across my own wrist, severing my sword hand. I fell, just before Cadell's knee created a crater in the oak where my head used to be. If that had struck me, my skull would have popped like a watermelon.

The agony of my severed wrist was distant as I fitfully called on my emptying mana core. Sweat and blood and rain soaked me to my very bones as I stumbled backward along the trunk of the massive tree, trying to think of what to do next.

"A swordsman without his right hand," Cadell sneered, rising as he stood perpendicular to the massive tree. In his grip was my severed, mutilated hand, which he inspected with apathetic disdain. With dull hesitance, he plucked something from one of the fingers.

I didn't think I could feel more terror, but as the creature withdrew a single item from my dimension ring, I felt whatever surety I had left in my soul wither and die.

A scepter gleamed there, gilded in silver and gold. Aether and mana danced around it in equal tune, a strange complement to the swelling ritual in the distance.

The Lance Scepter. The symbol asuran authority that had allowed me to reassign and control the effects of the Lance Artifacts at will.

I rushed forward in a roar, trailing blood and fury as my sword flashed. I couldn't let this monster have it. He'd have Aya, Mica, and Varay under his control. He'd have Tess under his control.

Cadell sidestepped with a contemptuous snort, before swinging the scepter at me like a bludgeon.

It smashed into my chest, cracking bone and spraying blood. I was pressed into the tree as agony tore through my sternum, my core shuddering as my consciousness flickered in and out.

"Papa!" someone screamed. "Papa, I'm—"

Cadell swung the scepter again, and I was embedded deeper into the wood. I screamed in pain, blood flowing into the grooves.

Cadell stared at me, Regis at his side. I thought I could feel their joint disdain digging into my soul as I felt my life's blood slowly drain away. "A fitting end, Lesser King."

Then his boot slammed into my chest, and I shot through the innards of the tree.

My vision went black for a moment as I hit some sort of ground, agony and rippling fire professing their dominion over every inch of my body. I laid still for a long, long time.

But a single terrified voice pierced every inch of pain and agony with more efficiency than any lance Cadell could muster.

"Art?!"

My eyes snapped open as I heard Alice's voice—my mother's voice. And it was so close.

I was in a hollow of corded branches and vines, like a nest-hollow crafted within a powerful oak.

My family—they were here. Somehow, they were here, at the heart of this massive tree. Huddled against the far wall, Dad stood protectively in front of my mother. There were a couple of others, too, but I didn't see them. Only my mom and dad, quaking in terror as the shadows of my past loomed behind me. My vision was tainted red by a stream of blood.

They shouldn't be here. They're going to die.

My mother pushed past my father, terror in her eyes as she called on her healing mana. She tripped over her skirts, nearly falling over as she reached me.

"No, no," she whispered through horrified tears as she lowered her vivum arts to my flesh. She pulled me close to her, trying to mend my wounds. "No, my baby. You're going to be okay."

"Ahh," Cadell's voice said, smooth and satisfied. "And they are all here."

I turned slowly, my neck creaking as I stared in deepest horror at the demon at the edge of the tree.

Two figures stood stalwart between me and Cadell. Tess, her hair glimmering silver as her mana danced weakly around her, and Sylvie, with soulfire sputtering around her fingers.

No, I thought in terror, visions of a cave fifteen years ago flickering before my mind. No. No no no. Not again. I couldn't watch this happen again, powerless to affect anything.

I tried to pull myself up, but my limbs refused my command. Dad rushed over, putting himself between me and my bond and lover.

"No," I pleaded weakly, tears gathering at the edges of my eyes. Not from the pain. From the fear. "No, please. Run. Run away!"

Cadell's nose wrinkled as he stared contemptuously between Sylv and Tess, his mana receding for a moment within this broken hollow of a tree. The scepter in his grip still dripped with my blood, my severed hand leaking scarlet between his gauntlets.

"And the cycle continues," Cadell said stiffly. His eyes focused on Tess, making her shudder, before slipping toward my bond. "When I tear out the Lesser King's heart, will the two of you come for me in fifteen years, weeping for your Sylvia?"

Sylvie's face shifted, draconic scales pulsing beneath the surface. "You won't take another step forward, monster," she said, her voice tinged with both fear and resolve. "We'll put you down."

Cadell's boot rose as shadows swelled around him, casting the entire hovel in darkness. Black tongues of fire licked at the edges of the opening in the tree. "That is what they have all said."

I demanded my mana to move, for the aether to flow. I begged and pleaded and screamed at my weakening body as my mother's healing arts sank into my flesh, trying in vain to wash away my wounds. I couldn't let it happen again. I couldn't lose everyone again. Not to this monster. Not to his fire. I had promised them all.

Memories of another life flickered behind my eyes as I tried to stand, but I couldn't shift an inch. I was too weak.

I wasn't Grey.

But then something happened that I did not expect. Cadell's boot halted as it was outlined in sudden white, sparkling mana rejecting his presence. His eyes widened the slightest, just at the edges, as something gripped him even as he tried to shift into the atmosphere again.

Then he was ripped from the tree, torn backward by an explosive boom of telekinetic mana. He vanished into the storm, the demon whirling with a snarl to face our looming savior.

I slumped back to the floor as Toren's telekinesis ripped Cadell from the hole in the tree, a mirrored emptiness taking its place in my chest.

Sylvie whirled on her feet immediately, her worry piercing the haze of my thoughts. My draconic bond rushed over, her aether arts sputtering across her fingers as she stumbled to my body in a near-perfect mirror of my mother. I felt the familiar healing balm washing over my body, soothing aches and pains I didn't know existed.

Tess didn't move yet, still nervously staring at the place Toren had torn Cadell. The sounds of their battle echoed through the sky, sending shivers through the tree.

"Arthur," Sylv said quickly, "we need to get you out of here. We'll get you healed, then we're going to retreat. Spellsong can deal with Cadell."

Dad stumbled back toward me, kneeling at my side. He didn't say anything, just held my mother's hand as she slowly began to work in tandem with my bond's aetheric arts. His eyes were a swirling mix of horror and worry as he looked at the ruin of my form.

Mom bit her lip, her eyes shaking as she helped wash away the brutalities that had assaulted me.

And watching it all was Regis, separate and alone. That was what Sylvia had always wanted for me, right? For Arthur to have a life without Grey?

For some reason, despite it all, that made me laugh. I laughed, tears dripping from my eyes as the warmth of my loved ones made me feel safe, like a child in the womb. Tess and Mom and Dad and Sylv were all here, holding me and loving me. Even in this darkest hour, I felt so…

So full.

"He can't do it," I said quietly, slowly drawing in energy with mana rotation. The stump of my right hand wasn't fully healed yet, but no longer was I at risk of dying. I stood on shaky legs, balanced by my dad as he wrapped an arm under my shoulder. "Spellsong's not strong enough."

Even from here, the aftershocks of Toren's clashes with Cadell rumbled through the sky. I could hear his battle cry, taste his aether and surety on the wind. But Cadell was greater than Toren, more than him.

Sylv's eyes glistened with tears. She could sense it over our bond, the resolve that still played through every nerve. The understanding of what I needed to do. "No, Arthur. No. You can't. You have people who need you. This isn't like your previous life. You don't need to be Grey anymore."

I don't… need to be Grey anymore? That was what Sylvia had said, wasn't it? In a far-distant past? That was what made her special, wasn't it? Cadell's words seeped over me like hot wax. Sylvia wasn't special, he'd said. She was just a broken dragon, condemned to die in a cave.

But that was so, so very wrong. I'd only spent a few months in that cave with the dying dragon, but the time we'd spent together felt like years. Because, despite my mental age, I'd been able to act like… To just be….

Had Sylvia… ever called me a weapon?

The world fell away as I stared at Regis, something deep in my soul aligning. He stared back, and I thought I understood. He was so alone, set apart from everything that could ever make things right. As I was bathed in the warmth of my loved ones, he was a cold monolith, never given the chance to change.

No. She only ever called me child.

I realized, then, that I had always misunderstood. Sylvia wasn't special because she'd somehow seen the future, or accepted a monster. She was special because she had never seen a monster when she looked at Grey. She'd seen something I'd always missed.

"I'm not just Arthur, Sylv," I said, pushing past my family. For a moment, I left the world behind, memories of all I'd endured these past few months trickling into my head.

How had I been so blind? How had I ignored the truth for so long?

No… I knew why I'd run from it, terrified as I was. I wanted to treat this phantom in front of me as something alien. Something wrong. He was a creature, a weapon ripped from my previous life.

But Sylvia hadn't looked at Grey and seen a weapon. To the wise asura, he was just another broken boy, unable to face the world after losing his mother. For all his monstrosity, he was a child hiding from the dark, fearful of what may come. He wanted to hide behind his mask of logic because it kept him safe. And he was still me.

All along, I'd taken Sylvia's message to mean I should avoid Grey, throw him away and never look back. But Cadell's mocking taunts of how Sylvia was nothing special unlocked a deep-seated truth inside.

Sylvia was special because she had seen the truth so long ago: a truth I could barely hope to grasp at the time.

We can be better, Grey, I thought, reaching out my hand to the phantom of Regis. How many times had I offered my hand in second chances?

Trodius. Bairon. Taci. Nico. I'd given them all the chance to be better, to make something more of what they had around them. Not all of them had followed through, recognizing the beautiful gift of another shot, nor how beautiful it might be, to try again and be better.

But as I offered my hand out to Regis, I felt like everything in my life had led to this moment.

We can have another chance, Grey. You can be something better. You can grow. We can make something better of this world and of our second chance. You don't need to be a child anymore, hiding from all you might feel.

"Not just Arthur," I said, the aether around me dancing, as if listening to a song none could hear. "Grey, too."

And as Regis stared at the offered hand, something in that visage of his cracked. It was slow at first, like faultlines in the earth. But as purple, aetheric light pulsed from beneath the shell, like a star bottled in a cocoon, it began to spread faster and faster. Like shattering glass, more and more cracks spread.

He began to change. Emotionless eyes suddenly blazed golden. Short-cropped hair beneath a crown of dead gold lengthened, gaining a pale, wheat hue. Bland and dull features sharpened into something otherworldly and almost… familiar.

Like a butterfly emerging from the folds of a cocoon, he metamorphosed. With the chance to grow—with the chance to be better—a broken boy could be something more.

Regis hesitantly took my hand, a warm smile contrasting the grim line of his features I had always known.

"It's been so long," he whispered. And this time, it wasn't with Grey's dead voice. It was my voice, raw and choked with emotion. Tears streamed from golden eyes, as if he were feeling every ounce of emotion he'd denied himself for so long. "I've waited so long to hear you ask."

And the world was bathed in light.